The fourth time turned out to be the charm for Raleigh Enloe when it was courting former Cummings High School coach Steve Johnson.

Johnson was introduced as Raleigh Enloe’s football coach this week after spending the last 21 years as head coach at Cummings.

“I was going to take at least a year off and let my motor, let my body heal a little more. I was run down,” Johnson said. “When this came open, the more I talked with their administrators, they were willing to do a lot of concessions to get me to come there.

“I turned the job down three times before I decided to take it.”

Johnson retired from his coaching and teaching positions at Cummings in November, citing health concerns. He spent his first eight years at Cummings as an assistant before becoming head coach in 1993. His teams won state championships in 2002 and 2006, and he was an assistant for three other state championship teams.

After racking up 191 victories as head coach of the Cavaliers, Johnson takes over a Class 4-A program that was winless last season and had one victory in the prior season. Raleigh Enloe is a member of the CAP-8 Conference.

“They’re just looking for somebody to lead them in a positive way. I think they’ve just been beaten down,” Johnson said. “To them, it’s a good hire because I have a championship background. I don’t think they were expecting that.”

He joked that the football field is “not the worst I’ve ever seen, but it’s in the top five,” citing that it is simply overused.

But for the lack of success and transition, Johnson transitions to a school that had the highest admission total in the state at the beginning of the state playoffs last season. It’s also a magnet school for the arts, and Johnson said he has already been impressed by the academics of the school.

“To pinpoint what exactly drew me there, I don’t exactly know,” Johnson said. “I was going to take at least a year off, but after talking to them and talking to them, I said, ‘let’s give it a try. Let’s see if we can get them changed around.’ ”

Johnson could not be introduced as Raleigh Enloe’s coach until this week despite having agreed to take the position more than a month ago. His assistant coaches are still waiting to be approved by Wake County.

In workouts and team meetings so far, Johnson has already started to carry the team away from its run-heavy Wing-T offense in favor of his spread offense that was a staple at Cummings.

“I think they’ve got speed, but what they lack is size. They don’t have size whatsoever,” Johnson said. “We’re going to spread it out, make good use of the athletes and hopefully use the smarts that these kids have to find some wins.

Page 2 of 2 - Johnson is not planning on moving from Alamance County. He will occasionally be a substitute teacher at Raleigh Enloe, although he said it would be at his discretion for how often that happens.